What drives a successful start-up? A lot of things, but it definitely needs a founder (or founders) who are really passionate about what the business is doing. After all, when times are tough and sleep is scarce, having a strong belief in and love of ...read more

I've heard this question framed in debates online and in offline events. It is as if there is a natural definition of a startup as being exclusively "home grown." If you use anything other than yourself, your laptop, your own team and the funds that you ...read more

This week, Israeli startups came to Microsoft's Silicon Valley headquarters and demonstrated their products in front of dozens of investors from around the world. We're running a series this week that gives the founders at these companies the oportunity ...read more

Back in February we had a great series of Windows Phone 7 talks we did at Seed Philly that culminated in a demo night where startups showed off some pretty interesting Windows Phone 7 applications. During the weeks that we held the event, we heard from attendees, “Why don’t you do this with Azure?” Well...

Startup Weekend Tampa – April 13-15, 2012 (Quick Note – At Microsoft we do event reports when we participate in big community events so we can share experiences and let our co-workers know what we’re up. This was really a fantastic event so I wanted to share a little wider.) http://tampa.startupweekend...

Great new content from the expert team I’m involved with around Azure. Check out all the new content here: Windows Azure Learning Path We have aggregated a set of resources for a structured learning of cloud computing through a set of courses designed to hone your skills progressively. Each course is...

Really awesome mention of one of our favorite East region Windows Phone 7 developers - Executive Caddie . Interesting is their discussion of James Browning’s close contact with customers around new features added to the product. Check out the whole thing ...read more

Hot on the heels of the case study we blogged about last week , it turns out the BizSpark team has put together a page with case studies featuring BizSpark companies on the Azure platform. You can check it out at the link below. BizSpark Case Studies ...read more

The WP7 info for developers keeps rolling in. This is fresh off the WP7 Developer Blog. Read the whole thing for details. A Developer’s Roadmap to Windows Phone 7 Launch Timing Of course, it’s not just the big names in development who are going to bring great titles to Windows Phone 7 customers. There...

New training from the Windows Phone 7 MVPs. Check it out at the Windows Phone Developer Blog… Windows Phone 7 Jump Start Training Today we are publishing the first in our training content led by our MVPs. Rob Miles and Andy Wigley led an incredibly well received live training course about a month...

If you’re looking to check out Azure development without a commitment, this program will give you access to Azure without a credit card for a month. Windows Azure One Month Pass Windows Azure One Month Pass •Learn about the Windows Azure platform with no steep learning curve •With Windows Azure you pay...

Sometime later this year, Windows Phone 7 will hit the market and we’re looking for startups that are building on the platform. If you’re a BizSpark startup in the Eastern US and you’re building for Windows Phone 7, drop me a note. ( brianjo@microsoft.com ) If you want to learn more about developing...

Over at The Windows Blog , they’ve announced project Hilo. Hilo focuses on using Visual Studio 2010 and C++ to build extremely powerful Windows 7 applications. Check out the post and the links below: Introducing Project HILO … Today, we are announcing project “Hilo” It’s important for an application...

Work Wednesday is a chance for each of us to help reduce unemployment by using the power of our social networks to make connections between job seekers & job seekees. We wanted to share some great resources we’ve found for freelance web designers and developers: 15+ Great Ways to Find Web Design...

Sean Seibel works with the top agencies in the world, helping them to take advantage of Microsoft technologies in the work they do. This is an interview with Ed Starr from BMF Media and Frances Calandra from Vectorform, sharing insights on partnering with Microsoft in building IE8 Add-ons. BMF Media...

BizSpark Startup Linxter is launching a new product called MonitorGrid. It's a server health service that was conceived and developed as part of one of our BizSpark Incubation Weeks last year. I was able to talk to Linxter CEO Jason Milgram today about MonitorGrid and about the future of the project...

Microsoft just published a case study on Flickchart, one of my favorite sites on the net and one of my favorite BizSpark Startups. To me, this site shows off the awesome power of Microsoft Software in the hands of great coders and artists. So check out the case study and visit the site at http://flickchart...

@HOME WITH WINDOWS AZURE Elevate your skills with Windows Azure in this hands-on workshop! In this event we’ll guide you through the process of building and deploying a large scale Azure application. Forget about “hello world”! In less than two hours we’ll build and deploy a real cloud app that leverages...

Awesome new stuff on Facebook. Check out the Channel 9 interview Charles did with Lily Cheng below. You can get more information at http://docs.com . (Should be easy enough to remember that URL.) Microsoft FUSE Labs has created (and released to the web today) a new social experiment that aims to add...

Visual Studio 2010 is here! The product launched Monday and we have resources for you on the U.S. partner portal , plus new courses available to you on the Learning Plan Tool to help hone your skills on this great release. Featured Training Partnercast: Selling Solutions with Visual Studio and Expression...

Just a quick note… Ignite Atlanta is happening on on Monday, April 19th and Microsoft BizSpark is a sponsor. Check out the video below. You can sign up here . You can get more info about Ignite Atlanta at http://www.ignite-atlanta.com/ .
Ignite Atlanta from blake on Vimeo .

Orlando Sentinel technology reporter Etan Horowitz did a nice writeup of Flickchart , a BizSpark startup based in Orlando. Check out the story below for a link to get in on the beta. Central Florida entrepreneurs launch Web site allowing people to rate ...read more